The fourteenth Plenary of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO-XIV) was held October 25-26 in Washington DC, bringing together more than two hundred representatives of GEO Members and Participating Organizations. The Plenary was the centerpiece of “GEO Week 2017: Insight for a Changing World,” which included a variety of side events, working meetings, and a public exhibition at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. CIESIN director Robert Chen and senior digital archivist Robert Downs represented the International Council for Science (ICSU) World Data System (WDS) at the Plenary, and also contributed to several side events and other activities. On October 23, Chen co-organized the side event, “Best Practices – Data Sharing and Data Management in GEO,” during which he moderated the opening panel on “Why Does Open Data Sharing and Sound Data Management Matter?” Downs highlighted activities of the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN in an afternoon panel, “Best Practices in the GEOSS Common Infrastructure.” On October 24, Chen gave a short panel presentation on urban sustainability indicators at a morning side event on “Earth Observations in Service of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” (EO4SDG). He then co-moderated an afternoon side event on “Sustainable Development on Our Human Planet: The GEO Human Planet Initiative” and gave a talk on translating Earth observations data into actionable information for policy. Chen and Downs also participated in working meetings of the GEO Data Sharing Working Group and the EO4SDG initiative.

GEO is a voluntary intergovernmental partnership of more than 100 national governments and over 115 Participating Organizations that envisions a future where decisions and actions for the benefit of humankind are informed by coordinated, comprehensive and sustained Earth observations. SEDAC is a member of ICSU-WDS and has contributed to a variety of GEO activities and initiatives for more than a decade.

Thousands Attend Open House at Lamont to Enjoy, Explore, Learn

October 9, 2017

Columbia graduate student Christina Paton (left) discusses population exposure during the September 7.1-magnitude earthquake near Mexico City with geographic information specialist John Squires (right).

More than 3,500 visitors from across the region came to the Lamont campus of Columbia University October 7 to "Enjoy, Explore, Learn" during the all-day Lamont-Doherty Open House in Palisades NY. The Open House provides the scientists and centers at Lamont with the opportunity to showcase their work, engage visitors in hands-on activities and demonstrations, and support informal learning about science by students and the general public. This year, CIESIN's booth featured interactive demonstrations of two hazard-related mapping tools: the HazPop mobile application for iPhone and iPad and the SEDAC Hazards Mapper, both developed through the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Visitors could also learn more about the populations affected by two recent natural disasters, Hurricane Harvey in Texas in August and the Mexico City earthquake in September. Two other interactive decision support tools were demonstrated, the Jamaica Bay Water Quality Data Visualization and Access Tool and AdaptMap, which focuses on adaptation to flooding and sea level rise in Jamaica Bay. CIESIN's international development work was represented by a poster on community and ecosystem vulnerability to climate change in the coastal areas of Sierra Leone, part of the West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change (WA-BICC) project of the U.S. Agency for International Development. More than a dozen CIESIN staff members volunteered their time at the booth on a warm, fall weekend day.

World Data System Scientific Committee Meets in Kyoto

October 4, 2017

Alex de Sherbinin, CIESIN associate director for science applications and SEDAC deputy manager, traveled to Kyoto, Japan for a meeting of the Scientific Committee of the International Council for Science World Data System (ICSU-WDS) held September 30-October 1. Key issues addressed at the meeting were the recent launch of the CoreTrustSeal certification, developed jointly by ICSU-WDS and the Data Seal of Approval, and updating of the ICSU-WDS strategic plan. At the meeting, de Sherbinin described ongoing work to encourage data centers involved in the NASA SERVIR West Africa hub to seek certification under the CoreTrustSeal and to join the WDS. He also reported on the work of the CODATA-WDS Task Group on Citizen Science Data, which he co-chairs.

The Scientific Committee is the governing body of the World Data System, which is an interdisciplinary body of the International Council for Science established in 2008. SEDAC is a regular member of the WDS, and the NASA Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project is a WDS network member. Dr. de Sherbinin has been a member of the Scientific Committee since 2015. The meeting was hosted by Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT).

New Database Facilitates Analysis of Use of Interdisciplinary Data

September 29, 2017

Understanding how scientific data have been used in scientific studies is important to further use of the data in both science and in practical applications. The NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) has tracked the use of its data for more than two decades in a range of scientific publications, in order to better see how these data are incorporated into scientific research and combined with remote sensing and other types of data. Such scientific citations are also useful for SEDAC's data users, who may wish to see how others have used the data, and what opportunities and limitations have been found.

With this in mind, SEDAC has recently released a searchable database of scientific citations, containing more than 3,400 citations of SEDAC data published since 1995. This database enables users to more easily find and access relevant citations, especially those that also cite remote sensing data in conjunction with SEDAC data. Users may filter and sort citations in various ways, and export them to a file. Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) or other direct links to the publications are provided whenever possible. Access to the full text of the publications may require a subscription. The database provides direct links to relevant citations from the "landing pages" for data sets within SEDAC's web site.

Tenth Research Data Alliance Plenary Held in Montreal

September 25, 2017

"Better Data, Better Decisions" was the theme of the Tenth Plenary (P10) of the Research Data Alliance (RDA) held September 19-21 in Montreal, Canada. P10 drew a range of data scientists, managers, librarians, sponsors, and government agency representatives to Montreal, many of whom participated in several co-located events during the week. Robert Downs, CIESIN senior digital archivist, participated in the side event, "Research Data for Better Public Decisions" and in the RDA Technical Advisory Board and Working Group/Interest Group Chairs meeting September 18. During P10, he gave two presentations, "Improving a Trustworthy Data Repository with ISO 16363," and "Repository Platforms for Research Data: Addressing Requirements and Gaps." He also presented a poster on "Disseminating Open Source Software with Open Data: A Case Study from a Scientific Data Center," co-authored with senior research associate Pinki Mondal. Downs chaired a session organized by the Repository Platforms for Research Data Interest Group and served as a rapporteur during sessions of the RDA/CODATA Legal Interoperability Interest Group, which is co-chaired by CIESIN director Robert Chen. After P10, Downs represented the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) in a September 21 meeting of the Belmont Forum e-Infrastructures and Data Management Oversight Committee.

Spatial Data, Sustainable Development, and Climate Migration Addressed in New York City Talks

September 21, 2017

Alex de Sherbinin, CIESIN associate director for the science applications, gave a talk on “Spatial Data for the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development" at a learning session on “Navigating the Data Revolution" at Columbia University September 19. Organized by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UNSDSN) and the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the session drew approximately 40 participants attending the International Conference on Sustainable Development (ICSD) at Columbia. Later that day, de Sherbinin gave a keynote speech on climate change-induced displacement and resettlement at the event, "Human Impact: A Gathering about Climate Migration." The event was organized by Domini Impact Investments as part of Climate Week NYC, September 18-24.

The University of Twente in Enschede, the Netherlands, hosted more than 90 experts on population distribution and change, urbanization, remote sensing, and related fields for the first Human Planet Forum, organized September 13-15 by the Human Planet initiative (HPI) of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). The Forum sought to highlight recent progress since last year's HPI launch as part of GEO's 2017-2019 work programme, to expand participation and partnerships in the initiative, and refine plans for collaborative work. CIESIN director Robert Chen participated in the Forum's opening session, giving a welcome on behalf of William Sonntag of the GEO Secretariat, whose arrival was delayed by poor weather. Chen also served as a session moderator and gave a presentation on a new project on human settlement, infrastructure, and population data, recently funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, aimed at better coordinating and documenting the growing number of global data products on population distribution and related settlement characteristics. Deputy director Marc Levy and Geographic Information Systems programmer Kytt MacManus also attended the Forum, participating in planning discussions for several HPI activities and related projects. The Forum was organized jointly by GEO, the European Commission (EC) Joint Research Centre (JRC), and the University of Twente's Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC).

Representatives of government agencies, United Nations bodies, the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, other nongovernmental organizations and civil society groups, businesses, and scientific institutions gathered in Buenos Aires, Argentina September 3-8 for a Regional Summit on Strengthening Disaster Risk Reduction across the Americas. The Summit focused on how Earth Observations (EO) can help reduce the risks of disasters to society through open exchange and dissemination of EO data and improved end-to-end flow of data and information from providers to practitioners and decision makers. Research scientist Susana Adamo participated in the Summit as a representative of the Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP), giving an oral presentation on "ESIP strategies on data driven decision making in disaster risk reduction." She also presented a poster on ESIP initiatives in disaster lifecycle management and helped to organize and evaluate a simulation exercise, held during the Summit in both Spanish and English, for a fictional disaster scenario.

The Summit was hosted by Argentina's space agency, the National Commission for Space Activities (CONAE), and organized by the NASA Disasters Program in collaboration with the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), the Global Flood Partnership (GFP), and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). The NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN is a Type 2 ESIP member, and is an active contributor to the ESIP Disaster Lifecycle Cluster.

CIESIN Scientists Active in Two Workshops in Accra, Ghana

September 11, 2017

Participants in the Geospatial Data Training Workshop at the Accra City Hotel in Accra, Ghana, September 6-8, organized by the West Africa hub of SERVIR.

More than 20 data experts and managers met in Accra, Ghana September 6-8 to participate in a training workshop on geospatial data management, policy, and use, organized in support of the West Africa hub of SERVIR, a joint development initiative of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Greg Yetman, associate director for geospatial applications, and Alex de Sherbinin, associate director for science applications, co-led the workshop, together with John Del Corral of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI). The workshop addressed the importance of standards, open data, and sound data management practices, and included hands-on exercises in metadata development and use of IRI's climate data library. Sessions were also held on the architecture for the new SERVIR West Africa hub data portal and the development of data sharing agreements between members of the SERVIR consortium. Consortium members include the Regional Center of Agro-Meteorology (AGRHYMET), the Center for Ecological Monitoring (CSE) of Senegal, the African Center for Meteorology Applied to Development (ACMAD), the Centre for Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (CERSGIS) of Ghana, the African Regional Institute for Geospatial Information Science and Technology (AfriGIST), and International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). CIESIN is part of a team led by Tetra Tech, Inc. that is supporting development of the West Africa hub, which aims to help stakeholders and decision makers make more informed decisions related to agriculture and food security, water resources and hydroclimatic disasters, weather and climate, and land cover and land use change and ecosystems.

In parallel with the SERVIR workshop, climate scientist Sylwia Trzaska, together with de Sherbinin, participated in the West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change (WA BiCC) project's annual work plan validation workshop September 6-7. The two-day workshop involved project staff and representatives of regional partners, including the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Abidjan Convention for Co-Operation in the Protection and Development of the Marine and Coastal environment of the West and Central African Region, and the Manor River Union, as well as representatives of USAID. Workshop participants reviewed progress to date and activities proposed for the next year. Trzaska briefly presented the results of a vulnerability assessment carried out by CIESIN in the mangrove areas of Sierra Leone last year. CIESIN is also a partner with Tetra Tech in supporting the USAID-funded WA BiCC project.

Climate Change and Population Dynamics Examined at Alpach Forum Seminar

August 22, 2017

Alex de Sherbinin, associate director for science applications, co-chaired a six-day seminar on climate change and population dynamics at the European Forum Alpbach in Alpach, Austria, August 17-22. Together with fellow chair Dr. Raya Muttarak of the University of East Anglia and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), de Sherbinin lectured daily to more than 60 participants on topics including climate change science, vulnerability mapping, climate change-induced migration, and demographic aspects of climate mitigation. The Alpbach Forum has been convened each year since 1946 in Alpbach as an effort to broaden the education and offer new perspectives to students in post-World War II Europe. The Forum now has 700 students, selected from an applicant pool of 3,500, from all over the world, at different stages in their academic careers, and from many disciplines. The Seminar Week is the academic centerpiece of the Forum, with 18 interdisciplinary seminars conceptualised and facilitated by internationally-renowned academics.

Open Geospatial Community Gathers in Boston

August 18, 2017

Boston Harbor was the backdrop for more than 1,000 geospatial software developers, users, and other experts attending the International Conference for Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) August 14-19. Kytt MacManus, geospatial information system programmer, gave a talk on "Open Data and Processing Services at NASA's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC)," providing an overview of SEDAC's many free and open mapping tools and data services. FOSS4G is the largest global gathering focused on open source geospatial software and associated products, standards, and protocols.

Experts on Geographic Names Hold 11th Conference in New York

August 17, 2017

The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) held the 11th United Nations Conference on the Standardisation of Geographical Names at UN Headquarters in New York on August 8-17. The Conference, which marked the 50th anniversary of the UNGEGN, serves as a forum to encourage national and international geographical names standardization, promote international dissemination of nationally standardized geographical names information, and adopt single romanization systems for converting non-Roman writing systems to the Roman alphabet. On August 15, Greg Yetman, CIESIN associate director for geospatial applications, gave a special presentation on “Detailed Population Modeling: The Integration of Satellite and Census Data,” highlighting work by CIESIN and other groups around the world on population and settlement mapping. A video of his presentation and subsequent discussion is available through UN WebTV.

Scientists from three NASA Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) joined together at the Ecological Society of America annual meeting in Portland, Oregon to give a workshop on "Ecology from Space: How Can NASA Remote-Sensing Data Inform Your Research?" August 10. CIESIN senior research associate Pinki Mondal gave a presentation and demonstration about data and applications from the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN, highlighting geospatial data sets from SEDAC relevant to ecological research. The workshop was organized by Alison G. Boyer of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) DAAC, with presentations from ORNL scientist Michele M. Thornton, Cole Krehbiel from the Land Processes (LP) DAAC, and Jennifer Brennan from NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) project. The aim of this workshop was to provide a beginner's level introduction to NASA's remote-sensing and ground-based ecological data and to demonstrate user friendly tools to access, subset, and visualize these data.

Planning Meeting for West Africa SERVIR Node Held in Niger

August 7, 2017

Greg Yetman, associate director for geospatial applications, attended the SERVIR West Africa annual work plan meeting at the Agriculture, Hydrology and Meteorology (AGRHYMET) Regional Center in Niamey, Niger, August 1-2. CIESIN is an implementing partner of the West Africa node of SERVIR, a joint development initiative of NASA and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The meeting brought together consortium members from West Africa, prime contractor Tetra Tech, and USAID staff to review progress and plan work items for the coming year. The primary focus is the development of services in support of environmental monitoring in key areas related to charcoal production and deforestation, desertification, agriculture and food production, and land use/land cover change. A workshop on geospatial data and metadata is planned in September in Accra, Ghana. Established in 1974, AGRHYMET is a specialized agency of the Permanent Inter-State Committee against Drought in the Sahel (CILSS).

Geospatial Data for Sustainable Development Addressed by United Nations Experts

August 4, 2017

More than 85 countries and 70 international agencies and organizations were represented at the 7th Session of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM), held at UN Headquarters in New York July 31-August 4. The Session included a number of side events on key geospatial data topics related to disaster management, marine resources, planning of national censuses, and other aspects of sustainable development. CIESIN director Robert Chen participated in the August 1 side event, "The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Where is the Data?," giving a brief presentation on recent efforts to develop a public-private partnership for human settlement, infrastructure, and population data, as part of a panel on "Data Solutions and Platforms for the Sustainable Development Goals." The panel was moderated by Sanjay Kumar, chair of the UN-GGIM's Private Sector Network, and included Anne Hale Miglarese of Radiant Earth, Peter Rabley of the Omidyar Network, and Vincent Seaman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Chen and deputy director Marc Levy attended another August 1 side event, on Second Administrative Level Boundaries (SALB), and Chen participated in an August 3 meeting of the UN-GGIM Academic Network. Geographic information specialists Malanding Jaiteh and Dara Mendeloff, together with geographic information system programmer Kytt MacManus, also attended selected sessions and side events during the week.

Earth Science Data Experts Connect with Teachers and Data Users

July 31, 2017

Participants in the ESIP Educators Workshop at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, July 27, 2017, including members of the ESIP Education Committee. Robert Downs, CIESIN senior digital archivist, is in the back row, center right.

Robert Downs, CIESIN senior digital archivist, joined more than 250 Earth science data experts at the summer meeting of the Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana July 25-28. The meeting continued the 2017 ESIP focus on the theme, "Strengthening the Ties Between Observations and User Communities." As part of an all-day educators workshop on "Drones, Data, and the Great American Eclipse," Downs demonstrated several different mapping tools for visualizing data related to hazards and population exposure, developed by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN. He also gave a presentation in the ESIP session, "What Do We Mean by 'Trusted' Data?," on the topic, "Trusted Data for Disaster Management," co-authored with CIESIN director Robert Chen and Gregory Yetman, associate director for geospatial applications.

In a session focused on evaluating options for becoming a trusted data repository, Downs presented "Adopting World Data System Certification to Improve a Trustworthy Data Repository," co-authored with Chen and Alex de Sherbinin, associate director for science applications. The presentation summarized the certification process that SEDAC completed to become a Regular Member of the International Council for Science World Data System (ICSU-WDS). He also presented a poster depicting SEDAC citation metrics in a special "Research As Art" session held at the Wonderlab, a science museum in downtown Bloomington. Downs serves as the Type I representative on the ESIP Governance Committee.

World Bank Launches Atlas of Sustainable Development Goals

July 19, 2017

The World Bank Group has launched the 2017 Atlas of Sustainable Development Goals, an interactive data platform and publication aimed at charting the progress that countries are making towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that were adopted by the international community in September 2015. The Atlas illustrates trends and challenges for each goal, drawing on the Bank's existing World Development Indicators database and highlighting ongoing measurement challenges. At a July 18 breakfast event in conjunction with the 2017 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in New York, Umar Serajuddin, senior economist with the World Bank Group, gave an overview of the Atlas and its potential use by the sustainable development community. His Excellency Juan Carlos Mendoz Garcia, Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the UN, together with Stefan Schweinfest, Director of the UN Statistics Division, and Robert Chen, CIESIN director, then commented on the Atlas, focusing in part on its complementarity to other SDG-related data reports such as the recently released UN Sustainable Development Goals Report 2017. The panel discussion was moderated by Mahmoud Mohieldin, senior vice president for the 2030 Development Agenda, United Nations Relations, and Partnerships at the World Bank Group.

The annual Esri User Conference reportedly drew nearly 18,000 geospatial data and software users to San Diego July 10-14. Three CIESIN geospatial experts gave presentations and posters and staffed an exhibit booth. Greg Yetman, associate director for geospatial applications, gave an invited presentation on spatial data for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a July 12 meeting of the SDG Special Interest Group. He also presented a poster on a new data resource on impervious surfaces and human built-up and settlement extents developed by researchers from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of Maryland. The Global Man-made Impervious Surface (GMIS) and Human Built-up and Settlement Extent (HBASE) data sets are based on Landsat 8 images circa 2010 and will be made available through an interactive data visualization and access interface, now in beta testing, from the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN. The poster was co-authored with: Sri Vinay, CIESIN associate director for information technology; Kytt MacManus, geographic information systems programmer; Frank Pascuzzi, programmer; and Al Pinto, senior media designer, together with Panshi Wang and Chengquan Huang of the University of Maryland and Eric Brown de Colstoun of GSFC.

Geographic information specialists Dara Mendeloff and Linda Pistolesi also presented posters: Mendeloff′s on the forthcoming SEDAC data set, Global Subnational Infant Mortality Rates, v2 (2014), and Pistolesi′s on the addition of age and sex data to the recently released Gridded Population of the World v4 data collection. The latter was co-authored with research scientist Susana Adamo and senior research assistant Olena Borkovska.

Hazard Researchers and Practitioners Convene in Colorado

July 13, 2017

More than 500 hazard researchers, professionals involved in hazard response and mitigation, students, journalists, and representatives of key government and private sector organizations met in Broomfield, Colorado, July 9–12 for the 42nd annual Natural Hazards Research and Applications Workshop. The annual workshop, organized by the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado-Boulder, is a unique forum for interaction between researchers and practitioners involved in improving understanding and management of hazards and efforts to reduce the impacts and risks of disasters. CIESIN director Robert Chen participated in a panel, “Keeping Count: Deaths, Damage, and Dollars Lost from Disasters," highlighting the role of remote sensing and population and infrastructure data in assessing and tracking hazard exposure, vulnerability, and impact. He also participated July 9 in a working meeting of directors, funders, and partners of hazards and disaster centers, aimed at promoting coordination and collaboration across the academic community, relevant Federal agencies, and other key organizations. The theme of the 2017 workshop was “Knowledge to Action: Reducing Hazards Losses and Promoting Disaster Resilience.″

New Application Supports Integrated Access to Population and Remote Sensing Data

July 10, 2017

A new application lets users more easily and efficiently access and transform remote sensing data on land cover and land use change together with spatial population data. Released by the NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) in collaboration with the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN, Version 1.9 of the Application for Extracting and Exploring Analysis Ready Samples (AppEEARS) leverages two data sets from the SEDAC Gridded Population of the World v4 data collection. AppEEARS enables users to subset data spatially, temporally, and by layer, reducing the volume of data they need to download for analysis. When a request is submitted to AppEEARS, users receive sample data values and associated quality data for data products of interest. Users may then preview and interact with their sample before actually downloading the full set of data of interest. Integrated access to LP DAAC data about land processes with SEDAC data on population distribution facilitates interdisciplinary analysis of interactions between environmental and human systems.

Step-by-step instructions for how to use AρρEEARS and a full listing of available products may be found on the AppEEARS Help page. Additional resources for using AρρEEARS and its services are available on the LP DAAC E-Learning page. For questions, contact LP DAAC User Services (lpdaac@usgs.gov). LP DAAC and SEDAC are two of the data centers in the NASA Earth Observing System Data and Information System.